


Working Girl

by isquinnabel



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin, Gilmore Girls
Genre: Banter, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/pseuds/isquinnabel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Pike needs a new job. Emily Gilmore needs a new maid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_slipslop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_slipslop/gifts).



> Happy fandom stocking, miss_slipslop!! I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it <3 
> 
> I love Emily Gilmore, and I didn’t deliberately set out to paint her as a horrible person, but this from the POV of her maid so I suppose it was inevitable ;) 
> 
> As far as Gilmore Girls is concerned, this is set around season 5. This also uses "job" from my babysitters100 table.

 

 

Adam scratched behind his ear, a grin playing at the corner of his mouth.  
“Explain it to me again.”  
Claire rolled her eyes. “It’s not that hard to understand.”  
“Humor me! Come on, explain it again.”  
Claire sighed.  
“Fine. I want to move to New York for acting, right?”  
“Yeah…”  
“Which is hard to break into and it’s nearly impossible to make good money, so I’ll also need a day job. Waitressing, or something.”  
“Uh huh…”  
“But my day job will probably also pay really terribly, so I’m going to work for at least a year to build up some savings.”  
“Okay…”  
“And I’ll be working as a live-in maid.”  
Adam let out a shout of laughter, spraying the dining room table with half-chewed doritos.  
“Adam!” shrieked Margo. “Gross! How old are you?”  
“Sorry,” he snickered, half heartedly cleaning the tabletop with his sleeve. “But come on, it’s hilarious!”  
“It’s not _that_ funny,” glared Claire. “It’s perfect for me!”  
“Oh, come on, it’s not perfect for you. Remember that time you tried to grow flowers in your bedroom carpet?”  
“I was eight, if you recall.”  
“Or the time you couldn’t be assed doing your dishes, so you made an ice-cream sundae in the palm of your hand? You weren’t eight then! That was, like, a month ago.”  
“Yeah, well, no-one was _paying_ me to be clean a month ago,” she retorted. “I can be a regular Danny Tanner, as long as I’m duly compensated.”  
“It’s not just being clean, Claire, it’s doing weird hotel crap like folding points into the toilet paper. How will you know what do to?”  
“Well, _as I was saying_ , before all your pointless interruptions.” Claire dramatically tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “I’m working for an agency, and they’ll teach me all that stuff. I have two weeks of training before they let me loose in someone’s house.”  
“How did you get them to hire you in the first place if you can’t already do that junk?”  
“I had a cooking audition. Once I demonstrated my kung-fu kitchen skills, they were practically begging me to join them.”  
Adam raised an eyebrow. “I’ll admit that you have cooking chops, but come on.”  
“Okay, fine, maybe they didn’t exactly _beg_ me to join them. But they accepted me, at least. And was that pun intended?”  
“My puns are always intended.”  
“Uh huh. Whatever. I bet you wouldn’t even notice half your puns if I didn’t point them out for you.”  
Adam glanced at Margo. “Anytime you want to chime in, you’re welcome.”  
“I’m really not that invested in your lame puns.”  
“I meant about the maid job.”  
“Oh, that.” Margo shrugged. “Well, I’ve heard her tell this story about fifty times, it’s lost its shock value for me. What’s the worst that can happen? If it doesn’t work out, she can just go back to Mom and Dad’s and get started on Plan B.”  
“Plan B? Does she even have one of those?”  
Claire loudly cleared her throat.  
“Thank you both for your unwavering support,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ll remember to graciously thank each of you in every one of my Academy Award speeches. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do.”  
  


* * *

  
If you asked Claire, she would tell you that she made it through her training with grace and flair. In all honesty, she wasn’t entirely wrong about that. She did what most people would call a perfectly adequate job; she wasn’t about to set the world on fire with bed-making and silver-polishing skills, but she was a fast learner and had a natural aura of likeability that made it easy to overlook any minor misstep she happened to make. 

“Perfectly adequate,” however, was not a standard that satisfied some of the agency’s more difficult clients.

“ _What_?” gasped Claire. “They pay _how much_?”  
“I wouldn’t get too excited,” warned Amelia. “The Gilmores are famous for the wages they offer, but that money comes with insanely high expectations. I’ve worked with this agency for five years now, and no-one I’ve assigned to the Gilmore contract has ever lasted more than a month in that house.”  
“I could put up with a lot to get this paycheck, even if it’s for just a month.”  
Amelia frowned. “Are you sure? I exactly don’t want to argue with you here, I’m all for making the most of volunteers to fill Gilmore vacancies… But you’re very new. Wouldn’t you prefer starting with something a little easier?”  
“Easy is overrated,” dismissed Claire. “And I’m tougher than I look. Send me to the Gilmores, I can handle it.”  
“Okay,” Amelia shrugged. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. You can start tomorrow. Wait a moment and I’ll print out the info you need.”  
  


* * *

  
The next morning, Claire was dropped off by the agency’s courtesy bus in front of a palatial house. The closest thing she had ever seen to anything like it were the houses in Andrew Brewer’s neighborhood, but this place was in a whole other league. For one thing, Andrew’s house always looked friendly and approachable. Some of his neighbors’ houses had a similar look to the Gilmore house, but possessed a comfortable air that made them feel like nothing more than overgrown versions of regular houses. Claire knew that the snottier, more ostentatious homes were hidden at the ends of long driveways, behind walls of well-groomed trees, but she had never actually seen one of them.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was about this place, but there was something about it that felt extremely intimidating. It was as though the house knew it had nothing to prove to anyone, and was eyeing her with disdain as she trotted clumsily up the driveway in shoes she’d bought at Walmart.

Doing her best to look professional and unconcerned, Claire gripped the handle of her small suitcase and strode purposefully around the back of the house. Amelia’s instructions had said, in no uncertain terms, that she was to find and use the servants’ entrance located near the pool house. Claire, a little weirded out to learn that servants’ entrances were still a thing, found a door that looked like it led into a kitchen. After a brief moment of hesitation, she took a deep breath and knocked.

It was answered almost immediately by a woman with immaculate eyebrows and shoes that were probably worth the combined total of Claire’s entire wardrobe.

“Good morning,” said Claire. “My name is Claire Pike, and I’m here from –“  
“My God, you’re a child! How old are you?”  
“Um…” Claire blinked. “I’m nineteen, ma’am.”  
The woman, who Claire could only assume was Mrs. Gilmore, huffed impatiently.  
“Well, there’s no time to do anything about that now. Follow me, hurry up.”

Claire, feeling somewhat bewildered, hopped up the two stairs and followed her into the kitchen. Mrs. Gilmore briskly showed Claire to the small room off the kitchen where she’d be sleeping, maintaining a constant stream of what could only be accurately referred to as _muttering_.

“Sending a teenager, as if I haven’t told that agency time and time again that an indispensible part of the job is serving drinks. Well, you can just let them know that if we find ourselves in any legal trouble for asking a minor serve alcohol, they’ll be hearing from our lawyer. And on that note, I have eyes in the back of my head, young lady, and I will notice if a single drop goes missing from the liquor cart, _do I make myself clear_?”

At this, Claire had to put conscious effort into keeping her jaw from dropping. In her normal life, she would never have dreamed of stealing alcohol from an employer, but something about this woman’s imperious attitude made her want to look her dead in the eye and chug one of her expensive bottles of scotch.

Instead, she nodded demurely and answered, “yes, Ma’am.”  
“Good.” Mrs. Gilmore looked at her watch. “It’s already 7:30 and the beds aren’t made. Are you still standing here for a reason?”  
  


* * *

  
“Leah?”

Claire stood up and stretched her back with a groan. For some godforsaken reason, Mrs. Gilmore had decided that today was a perfect day for waxing the floor in the foyer.

“ _Leah_?”

The light in the foyer at this time of day wasn’t fantastic, so Claire had a difficult time discerning just how close to finished the job was. Her new boss was clearly insane, but there was still a part of Claire that was determined to get something vaguely resembling approval from her. Her competitive streak had kicked in. This job was a game and she was ready to win.

“LEAH!”

Claire bit back a shriek, and whirled towards the doorway.

“Leah, I’ve been calling you nonstop for the past five minutes!”  
“Who, me? My name is Claire, Mrs. Gilmore.”

Mrs. Gilmore waved her hand dismissively, as if this were of no importance, and plowed onwards in her diatribe.

“When I’m calling you, it’s because I need you right away! Not in ten minutes, not whenever you feel like it, but _right away_!”  
“I understand that Mrs. Gilmore,” replied Claire, with as much politeness as she could muster. “But you were calling for Leah, and since my name is actually –“  
“Well, _obviously_ I meant you!” she snapped. “Who else would I have been talking to? Do you think I regularly use women’s names to address my husband?”  
Mrs. Gilmore whirled around on her heel.  
“Now, if you would deign to actually come with me and do your job, I need Richard’s and my summer clothing removed from the walk-in closet and packed into storage in the basement.”

Claire hurriedly placed the coat rack back in its spot by the front door, feeling like she deserved some sort of trophy for not beating Mrs. Gilmore to death with it.  
  


* * *

  
Claire quickly learnt to recognize what constituted a good day in this household. If Mrs. Gilmore simply made requests, with curt pleases and thank yous, Claire felt safe to assume that she was in a good mood and her day proceeded to be fine. A day of nonstop cooking and cleaning up after other people wasn’t exactly fun, but she was a big girl and she could deal. However, if Mrs. Gilmore was in a bad mood, Claire’s life was barely worth living.

When Friday afternoon rolled around, Claire began to set up for dinner prep. She had picked up over the past week that, shockingly enough, things were not at all peaceful between Mrs. Gilmore and her daughter. A family dinner was organized for that night, and Claire was not about to let her first Company Meal become the unwitting catalyst for some horrible family argument.

About two hours later, while Claire was navigating her way around six minor kitchen catastrophes, the doorbell rang.

“You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me,” grumbled Claire under her breath. Things in the kitchen were under control, but just barely. She had a lot going on and the last thing she needed to do was the leave the burners unattended to go answer the damn door. She turned the heat off before heading out, just to be on the safe side. There was a chance the sauce mightn’t thicken quite right now, but hey, better to risk a slightly imperfect sauce than a slightly burned-down kitchen.

 _Oh man_ , she kicked herself. _Why did I have to go and think that?_ Claire wasn’t exactly superstitious, but she couldn’t help feeling like there was no better way to ensure getting fired for subpar cooking than being dumb enough to consciously dismiss just how badly this little blip could affect her sauce. Or, even worse, no better way to ensure she actually did set the house on fire.

She closed her eyes. _Dammit, brain, can you please shut up for two seconds?_

Claire flung the door open to greet two women; one looked about in her mid-thirties, the other seemed similar in age to Claire herself.  
“ _Bonsoir_ ,” said the older of the two. “We’re here for Monsieur and Madame Thénardier, are they in this evening?”  
Claire’s brain was still locked to the potential disaster unfolding in the kitchen. On a regular day, in her regular life, she could have easily played along with this bizarre greeting. Today, she couldn’t manage any response other than a blank stare. The woman winced slightly.  
“Okay, let’s try it straight. Hi, we’re the daughter and the granddaughter, we’re here for dinner.”  
“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry.” Claire could feel her face burning bright red. “Can I take your coats?”  
“That doesn’t work as a reference, anyway,” said the granddaughter, shrugging out of a pale blue coat. “You own an inn, and your boyfriend owns a diner. If anyone in this family resembles the Thénardiers, it’s you and Luke.”  
“Oh, my God!” gasped the daughter. “You’re right! Why in the world would you point that out?”

Crossing the fingers on both hands, Claire slipped quietly back into the kitchen to check on her hopefully-still-perfectly-okay dinner.  
“Please don’t suck,” she whispered. “Please oh please oh please don’t suck.”  


  


* * *

  
“Claire, for heaven’s sake, it’s after seven!”

Claire looked up in horror, throwing a hurried glance at her watch. She knew that Mrs. Gilmore was an obsessive stickler for punctual mealtimes, and she had been keeping a close eye on her watch to make sure she announced dinner at seven on the button…

Wait a minute.

“It’s six fifty-nine,” frowned Claire.  
“Don’t use _your_ watch,” scoffed Mrs. Gilmore. “That thing probably doesn’t keep accurate time. Use the microwave when you’re in the kitchen, and the grandfather clock when you come into the dining room. And _hurry up_ , it’s already two minutes after seven.”

Claire’s watch had been an eighteenth birthday present from her parents, and it was actually a pretty nice one. She didn’t even bother to hide the glare on her face when Mrs. Gilmore swept imperiously out of the room. Claire followed, half a pace behind.

“Dinner is served”, she announced, with a tone of unnatural calm that would have sent a nervous shiver down the spines of every one of her older siblings.  


  


* * *

  
Once she finished distributing the main course in the dining room (and, jeez, you could have cut the tension at that dinner table with a knife), she quickly peeked in the oven to check on dessert. Not because she cared anymore about the stupid Gilmores and their stupid dinner, but because dessert was the best meal of the day and it was worthy of a little respect. No matter the circumstances, she always felt like she owed it to desserts to make them as awesome as possible. Plus, this dessert had meringue in it, so awesome was a little tricky.

She ate her own portion of dinner straight from the baking dish, not giving a crap if Mrs. Gilmore walked in and saw her. She’d overheard the woman make an aside a few minutes ago along the lines of, “we’ll let Claire see if she can manage to keep her job tonight,” and she couldn’t help wondering what would make an interesting how-I-got-fired-from-my-first-real-job cocktail story. _Yeah, my boss caught me licking all their forks. I dunno, she was kind of a jerk, and it seemed like a hilarious thing to do at the time._

For one brief moment Claire actually considered going through with licking all the forks – who would know? – when Mrs. Gilmore called for her to come and collect the plates.

Claire had only been indulging in idle fantasy. She had no real intention of deliberately sabotaging her position, especially when the Gilmores’ history at the agency proved that that was hardly necessary. She had walked into this job knowing that it was only a matter of time before she was fired, most likely for something utterly inconsequential.

Life, however, has a way of unfolding in a different way to what you’d expected. When Claire returned to the dining room with the tray of dessert, and placed a crystal bowl in front of Mrs. Gilmore, the woman looked up at her with an icy smile.  
“Excuse me, Claire, but what is this?”  
“It’s dessert, Mrs. Gilmore,” she replied. Her tone was, once again, eerily calm.  
Mrs. Gilmore speared two blueberries onto her silver fork.  
“And what are these?”  
“Blueberries, Mrs. Gilmore.”  
“That’s right, they’re blueberries. I specifically said that you were not to use the blueberries. I even left a note in the fridge, in case you weren’t listening when I told you. What else am I supposed to do, Claire? Exactly how clear do I need to be to make you to hear me?”

Claire felt herself harden. She knew exactly what was happening. She knew, she was one hundred percent positive, that Mrs. Gilmore had given her no such instruction. If she argued, she would be fired for talking back. If she admitted fault, she would be fired for failing to follow her instructions. 

No. No way in hell was she going to let it happen this way. She was leaving this house tonight, that was for damn sure, but not like this. 

She was Claire Pike, future Best Actress, and she wasn’t leaving without her dignity intact.

She slammed the tray down on the dining room table. It made a very satisfying _BANG_ , and everyone at the table gave a sudden start.

“I quit!”


End file.
